Cory Booker, like Barack Obama, is a young and super-educated black politician with a golden tongue.

But the two share much more than that. They have walked the same political path, one in Chicago and the other in Newark. They both fought against older men with roots in the civil rights era, and bring an entirely new style of politics to the African-American community.

And when they sat down one day and compared their political bruises, they found a nearly exact match.

"He got lambasted as a 'white boy,' too," says Booker. "We've both grown up in a more racially complex time."

Two things have happened in America that make it possible we would actually elect an African-American president. One is that white voters are casting more ballots for black candidates, all across the country. Racism lives, but it isn't what it used to be.

The other is this new generation of politicians like Obama, the senator from Illinois, and Booker, the mayor of Newark. They steer clear of ideological fights and confrontations. They focus on solving problems. They build coalitions with white and Latino politicians. And they rarely, if ever, appeal to black voters based on narrow racial interests.

"It's a co-evolution," says David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focusing on black issues. "White voters have evolved. The other thing is, these black candidates are not your typical black candidates from the past. They have a broader message aimed at everyone. They tend to come from the best schools. And they are very nimble intellectually."

So Booker, with his law degree from Yale University, sat down last year with Obama, the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, at the Hilton in Newark. The two didn't know each other -- it was a blind date arranged by Oprah Winfrey's best friend, Gayle King.

Booker began the breakfast as a skeptic, wondering how much substance was behind the star from Chicago. But by the time the dishes were cleared, he was converted.

"He complete disarmed me and made me an enthusiast," Booker said.

The two swapped stories that rang familiar. Obama recounted his bruising loss in a primary race against Congressman Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther who ridiculed Obama by saying Obama knew little of the black experience in America.

"Barack is a person who read about the civil rights protests and thinks he knows all about it," Rush said.

The tone had to sound familiar. During Booker's losing 2002 campaign, Mayor Sharpe James often ripped into Booker as some kind of racial heretic. "You have to learn to be African-American," James once said. "And we don't have time to train you all night."

Try to imagine Booker or Obama making that kind of ugly racial pitch, and you can see how much is changing.

Booker has mixed feelings about the older generation. He's grateful that they broke down the doors that people like Obama and him are now walking through. But the political thinking, he says, has to change with the times.

"There is no Bull Connor in our way anymore," Booker says. "But there is still child poverty. And essential to solving that kind of problem is to build broad-based coalitions. Having Barack Obama bring us all together is important for that."

Along with Booker and Obama, Bositis says, this club of newer generation of African-Americans includes people like Washington Mayor Adrien Fenty, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former congressman Harold Ford, and Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.

"They are all very ambitious," Bositis says.

Obama perhaps the most. It is a bold act to run for president with as little experience as he has in national politics. And his soaring rhetoric is simply not matched by concrete achievements in his career.

But the point is that race is not the first concern. Yes, some white voters will reject any African-American. But Bositis, for one, thinks that will not decide the race.

And that says something important about American politics.

"Merit matters, regardless of race," Bositis says. "If you are somebody who excels at what you do, there is great potential for you to be successful."

The dinosaurs, meanwhile, are gradually giving way. When the Rev. Jesse Jackson was quoted saying that Obama needs to "stop acting like he's white," his congressman son wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times under the headline, "You're wrong on Obama, Dad."

Sharpe James, who stepped down as mayor rather than face a rematch with Booker, is now awaiting trial on corruption charges.

And Bobby Rush, who once ridiculed Obama as "an educated fool from Harvard," is now endorsing him.